The Storyteller Tales: Czesław Siegieda.

Czesław Siegieda (b.1954) was born in a displaced persons camp at Burton on the Wolds in Leicestershire. His upbringing was steeped in the Polish traditions of his parents. A photographer from a young age, he went on to study photography at the acclaimed Trent Polytechnic School of Creative Photography in Nottingham (1973 – 1977).

From 1970 until the eighties, he photographed members of the Polish community based in the East Midlands, treating them as protagonists of a small ‘theatrical world’ in search of a lost spiritual homeland.

Many of his subjects had suffered traumatic events but, as an insider he has a unique natural affinity with his subjects, understanding their sensitivities and respecting their dignity. His black and white photographs reveal a world which has all but disappeared.